


HEaRtS

by spacewritermonkey



Category: Warrior Nun
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:14:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29354805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacewritermonkey/pseuds/spacewritermonkey
Summary: Ava's hiding something and Beatrice may not be ready for the truth. Or for how she finds out.
Relationships: Sister Beatrice/Ava Silva
Comments: 6
Kudos: 161





	HEaRtS

**Author's Note:**

> I keep writing at the most inconvenient of hours. This started as a flash fiction of sorts on Twitter but suddenly...got longer. To those reading the entirety of this piece after being subjected to that excerpt on Twitter...hope this passes muster.

**HEaRtS**

"What are you doing?"

The question startles Ava badly enough the Warrior Nun phases right through her chair and down to a floor below.

Ava winces at the pain in her back but immediately forgets the pain in lieu of her panic at the thought of anyone seeing her work upstairs. And by "anyone" she means Beatrice.

Fumbling in the dark, Ava resorts to using her Halo as a convenient flashlight.

"Let there be light." Ava mutters, squeezing her eyes to focus and feels the familiar hum of her battery pack respond. She opens her eyes and tamps down on a squeal when the available light provides her the assurance she needs. THANKFULLY, she had phased through with the item in question.

Ava pats herself lightly on the shoulder, acknowledging that it's been getting a little bit easier to activate the halo as a light source. First time she tried it came with an inconvenient energy blast that destroyed a chunk of the Cradle's wall. The fact it was a corner of Mother Superion's office did not endear her to the woman. Nor did her explanation as to why.

Next, Ava looks around and determines she's inside a supply closet.

Before she could even take notice of the door, it swings open to reveal Beatrice whose look of concern quickly morphs into relief at the sight of Ava--who tries to hide her secret behind her back and fervently hopes the nun doesn't dare ask.

"Ava. Are you okay?" Beatrice asks as she steps foot inside, subtly trying to assess Ava for any injuries of any sort. And then tries to assess the small room for any halo-related damage.

"Oh heeeey, Bea. Fancy meeting you here. Inside a closet." Ava's high-pitched and forced laugh only furthers Beatrice's suspicion of something amiss.

Beatrice clasps her hands behind her back. "Indeed. You'd think I have spent enough time in one."

Ava's jaw lightly drops. "Wha—oh my God. Was that—did you just make a joke? About being—"

"Yes. Yes, I did." The pink suffusing the nun's cheeks makes Ava grin and refrain from commenting any further.

 _Baby steps, Ava. Baby steps,_ the halo bearer muses inwardly.

"So, uh...how'd you find me so quickly?" Ava tries to move the topic along.

Beatrice offers up a small smile. "The light from underneath the door gave you away."

Ava suddenly remembers the halo and in her self-consciousness of using the Holy artifact for something Lilith would refer to as utterly plebeian, the glow blinks out.

And while conversing, both end up forgetting the door which had apparently swung shut. With the halo light out, they are now both left immersed in darkness.

"Oh shit! Sorry about that. Wait, hang on. Lemme just..."

A banging sound erupts, nearly simultaneously accompanied by "Fuck!"

"Ava!"

"Nope! S'ok! Just my toe. I think. I forget I have them sometimes."

"First, language. Second, dare I ask how you would forget a body part?"

The sound of a few more items falling onto the floor makes Beatrice wince. She wants to alert Ava onto slowly acclimatizing herself in the dark by closing her eyes for a few seconds. She had already done so and is able to make out Ava's figure with her hands outstretched trying to...whatever it is she's trying to do. The nun absently notes Ava holding something in one hand. Possibly whatever it is she had been working on upstairs.

"A budding sociopath at the orphanage stabbed me with a fork in the leg coz he wouldn't believe I couldn't feel anything and said I was lying."

"What?!"

"It's fine. The look on the nuns faces more than made up for the hassle of getting my dinner late because the doctor had to see me. Whatever."

Beatrice can make out Ava's figure about to collide with a sizeable item on the floor, possibly a bucket, and with Ava's luck the younger woman was likely to plow headfirst onto the low-lying shelf that lined the walls of the closet.

With reflexes honed by years of discipline and training, Beatrice is quick to reach out and make a grab for Ava’s forearm.

Except Ava senses movement from Beatrice’s direction and slightly pivots in her curiosity.

“Bea?”

Beatrice’s outstretched hand misses and falters in her grasp of nothing but air. However, there’s leftover momentum from her forward movement, and given Ava’s change of direction, the nun knows a collision is inevitable unless she can correct her footwork.

All these thoughts occur in a split second—and in a near-instinctive move Beatrice seeks to counter her balance so as to halt her forward trajectory. With a keen sense of the space around her, Beatrice hopes to make another grab for Ava’s shoulders in order to halt any further surprise move from the Warrior Nun.

Except there’s a quick flash of light and a whisper that suspiciously sounds like “Let there be light” but the sister warrior is too distracted by the fruits of her slight miscalculation.

Beatrice thinks that, again, Ava must have quickly changed or shifted on her feet unconsciously—but all of the explanation in the world for how _THIS_ could have happened would not have made sense in that moment.

That moment where Beatrice has her arms around Ava and Ava’s hands are against her chest, their faces a mere few inches apart.

And she can see her. She can see Ava’s slightly wide eyes that hold surprise and…a soft expression Beatrice isn’t sure how to put into words.

Despite all the languages she knows and are fluent in, she can’t describe what it is she sees. Or maybe she doesn’t want to.

Nevertheless, all she knows and all she’s willing to admit in that moment is that…

… _she’s pretty._

* * *

Ava can’t help but shift her gaze downwards, somehow drawn to observe a pair of lips that are slightly open, as if the woman before her can barely draw breath. She tries not to take note of the fast heartbeat she can feel thumping beneath her hands—hands that are struggling not to make a move lest she incites panic in the nun.

And as the Warrior Nun forces her eyes to move back upwards, she sees the second a flicker of fear makes itself known in Beatrice’s eyes and Ava quickly takes hold of the cloth within her grasp with both hands, along with a plea.

“Please. Don’t.”

Though softly uttered, it appears adequate as Beatrice’s arms that have previously fallen, finds their way back around Ava. The nun halts from pulling away, though the look on her face betrays an expression befitting of someone torn between what Ava suspects the sister warrior feels she could and could not have.

Beatrice’s own whisper lined with pain confirms it for the younger woman.

“Ava…I… I can’t.”

Ava nods fervently “I know, Bea. I know. It’s okay.” She carefully touches the other woman’s cheekbone with a brush of the pad of her thumb, hoping it will soothe the tension she can feel radiating off her.

The halo bearer feels the hand around her waist tighten its grip.

“Hey. Look at me. Please?”

Beatrice had begun to lose herself in her tumultuous thoughts, a spiral Ava happens to be well-versed in.

She moves her hand to gently graze her forefinger against Beatrice’s chin, hoping the slight touch would be enough to catch the nun’s attention.

And it does.

Again, Ava nearly loses herself in the other woman’s eyes before the flash of color in her hand snaps her focus back onto the matter at hand.

“Look.” Ava says as she unfurls her one hand from its tight hold of Beatrice’s habit, her eyes motioning wordlessly for the nun to follow her gaze.

In the soft glow of the halo, a light source both seem to have totally overlooked, amidst the shadows their proximity to each other both throw into the scant space between them, Beatrice barely recognizes what Ava holds at first.

Her eyes squint in an attempt to focus better until Ava holds it up a little bit higher between their faces—obscuring Beatrice’s eyes from seeing Ava.

A fact the nun finds she happens to dislike.

With one hand, she pries the object away from Ava, and leans slightly closer—noticing the hitch in the other woman’s breathing as she does so. Beatrice tries not to let that little observation deter her from holding the object up and over Ava’s shoulder.

Beatrice sees the question in Ava’s eyes and finds herself whispering, “Your light source.” And thankfully Ava understands as her eyes light up in glee at Beatrice’s capitulating to the handy use of her personal “battery.”

When Beatrice forces her eyes away from Ava’s, she finally sees the object for what it is.

The art was hardly impeccable.

But she knows.

Although Ava feels the need to explain.

“It’s a heart. Or a real heart. You know? Like the one that makes our blood pump and all that. I mean, obviously it’s _NOT_ the real thing—duh. What I’m trying to say is, it’s better than that commercialized symbol, right?”

She finds herself unable to respond, drawn to the crude representation of what is supposed to be an anatomically correct heart: valves, veins, and all.

And in simple handwritten letters in the middle.

_Yours._

Beatrice can’t help it.

One moment she is frozen in the possibilities of what a single word can possess. The next, she is struck with an overwhelming fear: a familiar one. She can feel that old fear grab hold of her chest, can feel her limbs slowly grow heavy as evident by her arms falling away from its careful hold of Ava. There is a familiar restriction crawling its way up her throat, freezing the words she wishes she could better express. Words she knows Ava might want to hear.

It’s the same fear that held her back years ago.

For a moment, she’s back in that room dreading the inevitable opening of the door and the inescapable reveal of a truth she tried to hide for so long. A truth she barely understood then. Truth she understands better now.

A truth shared with one woman.

Ava.

“Beatrice!”

The urgency wrapped around her name calls her back into the present.

It seems there is something that does trump her fear: concern for Ava.

And in that note of urgency, Beatrice is quick to assess her Warrior Nun.

_Her? Hers? She’s not mine…_

“Focus on me, Bea. Look at me!”

Hands cradling her face force her to resume looking right back into Ava’s eyes.

“It’s okay. _You’re_ okay.”

“Ava—” her weak plea is cut off by Ava who wraps her in a tight hug. The kind she rarely allows herself to bask in, but one Ava’s always been eager to give—not just to her but anyone who needed it. And if Beatrice happens to keep track of the other recipients of said hugs…well, no one needs to know.

“You don’t need to say anything, Beatrice. You don’t need to explain either.”

At the younger woman’s words, a bit of the weight in her chest loosens, but the nun’s fists clench at her side at her inability and seeming paralysis in light of the current situation.

 _Ava deserves more than your cowardice,_ Beatrice internally berates herself.

“You…” she starts and falters.

But then the object in her hand registers in her brain.

_I passed through fear, past hatred, and beyond pain._

Beatrice takes a leap of faith.

And throws her arms back around Ava.

Ava felt Beatrice’s weight against her, as if the taller woman trusted Ava to be able to hold them both upright.

So that’s what she did.

“I can’t. Not yet.”

Ava feels more than she hears the near inaudible mutterings of Beatrice against her neck.

The younger woman finds herself rubbing her hand against the other’s back, trying to offer comfort and assurance. “Like I said. It’s okay. I just…”

In a quick turn of events, it is Ava’s turn to falter with her words.

But she persists.

Because Beatrice deserves her best to try rather than to just give up.

“I’ve spent enough time before just dreaming. It was all I could afford back then. And since the Halo…I promised myself and Diego I wouldn’t squander this second life. So…” Ava tightens her hold against the woman in her arms. “Beatrice…I don’t deserve you. And even if by some miracle I did, I know and I understand what you’re up against. But I just wanted to tell you that you have my heart.”

Ava’s last sentence is uttered so softly, Beatrice thinks she must be dreaming.

“I also wanted you to know…it’s okay if I don’t have yours. Be it in this moment or in the future.”

The continuation of the Warrior Nun’s admission causes Beatrice to stiffen in her arms.

“I can wait if that’s what you need. I can be your friend if that’s all I’ll ever be.”

Against her wishes, Ava begins to pull away and Beatrice allows it.

Against her inclination to keep Ava close, Ava takes a slow step back while Beatrice stays put.

A beat and a sad smile from Ava pass.

One question.

“Why?”

Just one word.

Yet, Ava understood.

“Because you’re worth it. And I know you’ll take care of that stupid metaphorical heart of mine.” Ava motions towards the near crumpled card in her hand. “And by stupid, I mean the card. Although I wouldn’t put it past my own organs to be stupid too.” It’s a lame joke but it does the trick to elicit light chuckles from both.

“You’re not stupid.”

In all their time together, it had become second nature for the nun to admonish Ava for every time the Halo Bearer puts herself down.

Suddenly, the glow from the halo begins to dim.

It dims slowly enough that by the time both are encased in darkness once more, Beatrice finds the courage she needed.

It’s quick and fleeting and Ava thinks she imagines it, but it almost felt like a pair of lips brushed against her forehead.

Followed by the softest graze of… _something_ near the corner of her lips.

But then she hears Beatrice speak.

“You already have my heart.”

Light from the open door floods their measly space, and Ava blinks a few times to reacclimatize to the sight of Beatrice haloed from behind by a waning sunset, the other woman already a step outside.

Until she turns back around and throws a parting message over her shoulder.

“Happy Valentine’s, Ava.”

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all may call this an exercise at fluff. Or I dunno. Something not so angsty. 🤞Have a rockin' 14th of this month. Whether you believe or don't believe the hype. We all could use an awesome day regardless. :)


End file.
